RUTHFULLY YOURS

Stories about World War II have been a major part of American popular culture for decades. From the Warner Bros. war films of the 1940s to Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan and beyond, there is a consistent magnetism towards America’s Greatest Generation and the war they fought against totalitarianism. Many people have relatives who were in the war or have met veterans that have made an impact on their life. Without question, WWII vets are a special, unique group whose stories deserve to be shared.

In The Fight in the Clouds, author James P. Busha organizes the many interviews he conducted with WWII fighter pilots over the years into one volume. Busha, a pilot himself, is also editor of EAA Warbirds of America, EAA Vintage Aircraft Association publications, and contributing editor for Flight Journal. The book opens with specifications about the P-51 Mustang that will be helpful to those new to the topic.

These pilots, like their planes, were tough as nails. The only accepted defeat was death. The tales range from fun practice runs, harrowing fights into enemy territory, and postwar musings. The Fight in the Clouds begins with a powerful introduction about the story of 2nd Lt. James Des Jardins and his brother, who both lost their lives serving our country in World War II. Their story is told, in part, through primary documents in the form of Western Union telegrams. Reading the words of the time always presents a unique and often influential response. This book, according to Busha, was written for those “who paid the ultimate sacrifice for our country as they laid their lives on the line to ensure that future generations would enjoy the freedoms and liberties that have been bestowed upon us.”

One of the many stories that stuck out to me was that of Capt. Clayton “Kelly” Gross, who was in a dogfight with “one of Hitler’s wonder weapons,” a Messerschmitt Me 262:

“And his critics? Most make the usual necessary ideological adjustments. Al Sharpton — former FBI informant [18], provocateur of lethal rioting, homophobe, anti-Semite, character assassin, deadbeat tax delinquent — is not shunned, although his bigotry is central to his career, but rather embraced by Hillary Clinton [19] and given his own MSNBC show [20]. The NAACP is slated in May to recognize Sharpton with a “Person of the Year” award — and had planned to give Donald Sterling a “Lifetime Achievement Award.” When public servants in positions of vast power like the attorney general reference blacks as “my people” or a Supreme Court justice spouts off neo-eugenicist riffs, they must be contextualized and explained as off-the-cuff musings not comparable to the felonious biases of an obscure private cowboy on the Nevada range.

Spare us the bottled piety.”

Cliven Bundy spouted off racist generalizations [1] the other day as reported by a New York Times journalist, stereotyping blacks in negative fashion, with unhinged referencing to slavery — and after that in an ad hoc talk generalizing about Mexican immigrants in positive condescension.

Does that outburst prove Bundy’s resistance to a bullying Bureau of Land Management is racially driven? Or that his cattleman’s existence on the Western range is now tainted?

What are the general rules about assessing issues when the involved parties voice odious creeds?

The difference between a private life and a public career matters. If cowboy Cliven Bundy were organizing a formal resistance to the federal government by emphasizing racist doctrines, then he would be dangerous in the way Rev. Jeremiah Wright was scary in spouting racist diatribes [2] to thousands in his congregation [3] and on his CDs — including to the future president of the United States.

President Obama is on the final legs of his Asian tour that included a two-night weekend stop in the increasingly prosperous Muslim-majority nation of Malaysia. So it’s a shame that Mr. Obama pointedly chose not to meet with opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, who nearly won last year’s election even as he appeals a second suspicious conviction on sodomy charges.

“The fact that I haven’t met with Mr. Anwar in and of itself isn’t indicative of our lack of concern, given the fact that there are a lot of people I don’t meet with and opposition leaders that I don’t meet with,” Mr. Obama said at a joint news conference on Sunday with Prime Minister Najib Razak. “And that doesn’t mean that I’m not concerned about them.” The opposition leader met instead with White House National Security Adviser Susan Rice.

Mr. Obama doesn’t meet with every opposition leader, but he was happy to meet with the leader of Angela Merkel’s opposition, German Peer Steinbrueck, and his former campaign adviser David Axelrod is advising British Labor Party leader Ed Miliband. Malaysia wants to join the ranks of rising middle-income states and be considered a full-fledged democracy, yet its ruling party has never lost an election. Mr. Anwar won an appeal of his first conviction but then faced a second indictment as he prepared to fight an election in which his party won 51% of the vote but only 40% of the seats.

Mr. Popper is a senior attorney for Judicial Watch and served as the deputy chief of the voting section of the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice from 2008-13.

The president’s selective statistics are red meat to supporters, but still bogus.

The Obama administration has been ramping up its rhetoric about the evil of voter identification as part of the run-up to the midterm elections. In January, Attorney General Eric Holder told MSNBC that voter fraud “simply does not exist to the extent that would warrant” voter ID laws, adding that many who favor such measures do so in order to “depress the vote.” Vice President Joe Biden claimed in February that new voter ID laws in North Carolina, Alabama and Texas were motivated by “hatred” and “zealotry.”

In an April 11 speech to Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, President Obama recited statistics purporting to show that voter fraud was extremely rare. The “real voter fraud,” he said, “is people who try to deny our rights by making bogus arguments about voter fraud.”

These arguments themselves are bogus. Consider the two studies from which Mr. Obama drew his statistics. The first, which he said “found only 10 cases of alleged in-person voter impersonation in 12 years,” is a 2012 report issued by News21, an Arizona State University project.

The News21 website explains that students “under the direction of journalism professionals” sent public records requests to state and federal officials asking for information about voting fraud cases. The project acknowledged significant gaps in its data. Several states made no meaningful response. Counties argued that “public records laws don’t require officials to respond at all.” Election officials and state attorneys general admitted that they did not track voter fraud. The Justice Department referred News21 to its 93 local U.S. attorneys but, the website reported, “many of those offices, in turn, referred News21 back to the department.”

Crucially, News21 noted that “nearly all the data” it received had “some vital piece of information that had been requested specifically but that was missing.” Responses lacked “important details about each case—from whether the person was convicted or charged to the circumstances of the alleged fraud to the names of those involved.”

Given these limitations, it is hard to believe any valid conclusions about voter fraud can be drawn from this study.

Mr. Obama also cited an “analysis” showing that only 40 voters “were indicted for fraud” from 2002 to 2005. That number is drawn from an Aug. 2, 2005, Justice Department news release—which describes the department’s “Ballot Access and Voting Integrity” initiative—and from a related list of federal cases. The release mentioned 120 pending election-fraud investigations, 89 prosecutions and 52 convictions.

By bold paramilitary action, Vladimir Putin is seizing full power over eastern Ukraine. At the same time his empty threat of outright invasion is leading the Ukrainian government—supported by Barack Obama as a rope supports a hanging man—to agree to a “federative structure” for the country. Thus, by creating facts on the ground and scaring Obama, Russia will control the East, and through it have gained the power to take part in governing the rest of Ukraine. Obama’s pretense—detailed in a sympathetic Peter Baker story in the April 18 New York Times—that he is limiting Russia by the threat of escalating sanctions and that he is playing a long game with regard to Russia, is a shameless attempt to put a brave face on what amounts to helping Putin.

Putin’s Russia has its cake in Ukraine, and can look forward to eating more of the former Soviet empire, thanks substantially to U.S. foreign policymakers’ tendency to live as if the world were as they imagined rather than as it is.

Imagining that the “end of history” was at hand when the Soviet Union broke up, our Euro-American ruling class discouraged the countries of the former Soviet empire from arming themselves sufficiently to maintain their independence. Republican and Democratic administrations urged Ukraine, the Baltic States, Georgia, and even Poland, to entrust their security to a combination of good relations with Moscow and Western assurances backed by precisely nothing.

Vladimir Putin never made a secret of his objective to re-create as much of the Soviet empire as possible, nor that he would use what he calls oppressed Russian minorities as instruments and justification. His 2008 invasion of Georgia detached the Abkhazian and South Ossetian regions, and limited the rest of the country’s independence. This set a pattern for Putin’s pursuit of “the new Russia.” Ukraine, the key to “the new Russia,” would be his major objective. When two successive U.S. administrations and the European Union neither imposed costs on Moscow for what it had done to Georgia nor acted to strengthen any of Eastern Europe’s defenses—indeed when the Obama administration, despite the attack on Georgia, removed even token missile defenses from Poland and the Czech Republic—they virtually guaranteed that Putin would move against Ukraine if and when Ukraine resisted its ongoing subversion.

Europe and the U.S. must challenge the Islamist ideology that encourages young Westerners to join the most extreme and dangerous factions in the Syria war.

We are watching the largest mobilization in a generation of volunteers traveling abroad to join a war. An estimated 11,000 foreign fighters have been mobilized in Syria, according to a just-published study by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (PDF). More than a quarter of those combatants are from Western countries, mostly from Britain, France, Germany, Sweden and Belgium. Australians, Canadians and U.S. citizen also have joined the ranks.

But judging by our complacency, you would be forgiven for not knowing this. Partly, that’s because some on the left in Britain and elsewhere have been busy downplaying the conflict or romanticizing it as something akin to the international brigades during the Spanish Civil War that attracted George Orwell and other idealists. But unlike Orwell in the 1930s, these fighters on their way to Syria are not traveling to fight against fascists. Many are young Western Muslims rushing to join a fascist group that is too extreme even for al-Qaeda: the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). Members have been known to behead even fellow fighters. And it’s not much consolation that the more “moderate” volunteers are joining, Jabhat al-Nusra, which is the official Al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria.

The problem is metastasizing rapidly. As the number if ISIS volunteers grows, and as all other jihadists groups — including al-Qaeda — unite to fight against them, they are beginning to leave Syria and spread their uniquely “Western” jihadist-criminal brand to third countries, including next-door Iraq.

So what can be done? We must start by asking why so many Western Muslims are prepared to travel and risk their lives to fight everyone else, including their fellow Muslim rebels, in Syria. Such decisions are not made overnight, and not in an isolated context. No amount of charismatic recruitment alone is powerful enough to achieve this feat if people are not already primed for exploitation.

In 24 Days, opening this week in Paris, filmmaker Alexandre Arcady sets out to expose the motives and the meaning behind a savage crime.

It was a ghastly tragedy that rattled a nation and became a byword for anti-Semitism in France. In January 2006, just weeks after riots had set aflame the troubled banlieues and housing projects throughout the country, a single horrific killing exposed an icy violence that was in its way even more shocking. Ilan Halimi, 23, was kidnapped by the self-styled “Gang of Barbarians” and tortured to death because he was Jewish and they thought his family or other Jews would pay for his freedom.

Now eight years on, the story is coming to cinemas in France. Alexandre Arcady’s 24 Days: The Truth About the Ilan Halimi Affair opens Wednesday, the first of two French feature films on the case due out in 2014. And in a nation where Europe’s largest Jewish community is still reeling from the recent fight to censor a notorious comedian spewing anti-Semitic hate, it is bound to touch a nerve.

Indeed, in the wake of the controversy over the dubious humorist Dieudonné M’bala M’bala, which saw his stage shows banned in several French cities in January, the Jewish community has expressed concern that anti-Semitic acts, which were down 31 percent in France last year, could rise.

And when 24 Days director Arcady describes Ilan Halimi as the first person murdered for being Jewish in France since the Second World War, it is lost on no one that he was not the last. During Mohamed Merah’s Al Qaeda-inspired killing spree in 2012, the motorcycle-riding gunman slaughtered three children and a rabbi outside a Jewish school in Toulouse.

The beginning of the end for Ilan Halimi came on a Friday night in January 2006. He had left his mother’s Paris home after a Shabbat meal to meet a girl at a café. A femme fatale in the truest sense, “Emma”—recruited as bait for Halimi—had first flirted with the affable mobile-phone salesman that very day in the shop where he worked on the Boulevard Voltaire.

She would lure him to a Paris suburb where the gang waited in ambush. They beat him, bound him and stashed him away in an apartment building in the projects. Halimi was held for 24 days, his eyes and face plastered in duct tape, first in a vacant flat, then in a basement boiler room with the building superintendent’s complicity.

When Halimi’s jailers tired of helping their captive relieve himself, they stopped feeding him. He was found barely alive in the woods near a commuter train line, still tied up, naked, and badly burned. He died before the ambulance reached the hospital.

When Halimi’s jailers tired of helping their captive relieve himself, they stopped feeding him. He was found barely alive in the woods near a commuter train line, still tied up, naked, and badly burned.

Arcady’s 24 Days tells the story from the perspective of Halimi’s mother, Ruth, based on her 2009 memoir. Savage violence goes largely unseen in the film. Instead, audiences sink into the family’s nightmare: The oppressive barrage of rambling, invective-laced phone calls demanding ransom—more than 600 calls over the course of Halimi’s captivity.

http://us4.campaign-archive2.com/?u=11002b90be7384b380b467605&id=b96545155e&e=50abfffa13
WASHINGTON, DC (April 28, 2014) — The Center for Immigration Studies will host a panel discussion to explore fraud and abuse in the asylum system. The erosion of controls designed to prevent fraud, and the resulting increase in approvals, have led to a 600 percent increase in applications since 2007.

This has serious implications for ordinary immigration control, as seen in South Texas, where there is a surge of Central Americans crossing illegally many of whom are claiming asylum. It also has national security implications; not only were the Boston Marathon Bombers granted asylum, but the Obama administration announced earlier this year that it was loosening restrictions on asylum seekers with ties to terrorism.

Panelists will also discuss the potential impact of the Senate immigration reform bill on the asylum system as well as feasible reform proposals.

Date: Wednesday, April 30, 2014, at 9:30 a.m.

Location: National Press Club, 529 14th Street, NW, 13th Floor, Washington, DC

Participants:

Dan Cadman, Former INS / ICE official with 29 years of experience as an agent, supervisor, and manager and author of a new CIS report, “Asylum in the United States: How a finely tuned system of checks and balances has been effectively dismantled”

Michael Knowles, President, USCIS Local 1924 of the American Federation of Government Employees

Jan Ting, Former INS executive overseeing asylum; currently Temple University Beasley law professor and CIS board member

Moderator: Mark Krikorian, Executive Director, Center for Immigration Studies

View the new CIS asylum report at: http://www.cis.org/asylum-system-checks-balances-dismantled
Asylum in the United States
How a finely tuned system of checks and balances has been effectively dismantled By Dan Cadman

The documentary, filmed by the BBC, proved what had long been suspected: that Sharia courts… routinely issue rulings according to Sharia law that are at odds with British law.

Paragraph 2.3 of the guidelines of the Law Society of Britain suggests that Sharia law could overrule British law in inheritance disputes.

Critics say the controversy is just the latest example of how the British legal and financial systems are being steadily transformed to comply with Sharia law.

The British government has launched a public consultation on whether or not to introduce student loans that are compliant with Islamic Sharia law, which forbids loans that involve the payment of interest.

The move to seek input from the general public comes amid rising complaints from Muslim students, who argue that the existing interest-based student loan system is unfairly forcing them to choose between getting a university degree and staying true to their religious beliefs.

The government says the establishment of a scheme that would enable Muslim students to finance their degrees in a way that complies with Islamic principles would “ensure that anyone with the ability and desire can go to university.”

Vicky Hartzler (R) Incumbent –
http://www.vickyhartzler.com/
http://www.ontheissues.org/house/Vicky_Hartzler.htm**
http://hartzler.house.gov/

Rated -6 by AAI, indicating a anti-Arab anti-Palestine voting record. (May 2012)
ISSUES

FOREIGN AFFAIRS
A top priority of mine will always be to ensure the safety and security of our great nation, and central to this priority is the recognition that the national security of the United States is directly tied to the strength and security of the State of Israel. The Middle East continues to experience instability with mass demonstrations in numerous countries, Hezbollah pointing rockets at Israel, Hamas controlling Gaza, and the looming threat of Iran’s nuclear program. U.S. security assistance to Israel has never been more important for our own interests. Any strategy less than the full commitment of our nation to the state of Israel would represent a serious and disconcerting change in U.S. policy.
I have expressed my support for Israel publically on the floor of the House of Representatives in order to express disappointment with President Obama’s proposal for Israel to return to its pre-1967 borders. President Obama’s call for Israel to make more sacrifices in the pursuit of peace in the Middle East is unacceptable. The borders that were established in 1967 followed three wars launched against Israel. For Israel, acceptance of the 1967 borders would mean that Israeli sacrifices were for nothing. We all want to see peace in the Middle East. However, it is unrealistic and naive to think that peace will come as a result of Israel – the only democratic state in the region – making more concessions. Restoring the pre-1967 borders would be a victory for Hamas, a terrorist group committed to Israel’s demise. This is not the path to peace and the President should acknowledge this. Peace can only come about through the Palestinians and other Middle Eastern countries accepting Israel’s right to exist. We must stand strong for Israel.
Pushing for Additional Iranian Sanctions: We must continue to highlight the persistent threat of a nuclear Iran. Iran continues its illicit drive for nuclear weapons in defiance of multiple mandatory U.N. Security Council resolutions. As one of the world’s leading state sponsors of terrorism, Iran provides weapons, money, and training to groups, which seek the destruction of both the United States and Israel. Iran has a global terrorist network and actively undermines U.S. peace efforts though its support of groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah. Stringent economic sanctions remain our only peaceful option by which to persuade Iran to suspend its quest for nuclear weapons. We must work relentlessly to enforce existing U.S. sanctions on foreign companies that work in Iran’s energy sector and on banks that facilitate Iran’s international transactions.

Assisting Taiwan: The United States and Taiwan have a long history of close relations. Taiwan is a stable democracy, a strong ally, and an important trading partner. Congress has played an important role in this relationship by passing the Taiwan Relations Act in 1979 to sustain our close bilateral relationship and to advance the mutual security and commercial interests of the two nations. This has served as a cornerstone of U.S.-Taiwan relations, and it has helped preserve peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait. I am a proud member of the Congressional Taiwan Caucus that works in a bipartisan way to enhance and strengthen U.S.-Taiwan relations and to ensure that Taiwan continues to be a free, democratic country. This membership, along with my membership in the Congressional China Caucus, shows strong support for countering the threat from China. Taiwan lives under a constant military threat from the People’s Republic of China. Taiwan is a fellow democracy facing a very serious threat and at this crucial time in their history, we must stand with our ally.

ENERGY
America should continue to develop its domestic energy sources to keep prices reasonable for consumers at home and at the pump. We have an abundant supply of natural resources in America that we must use to meet our nation’s energy needs, and these resources should be utilized responsibly. However, the current administration has done nothing but increase the cost of doing business and hold up common sense infrastructure improvements like the Keystone XL Pipeline. The Keystone Pipeline would create 15,000 manufacturing jobs and 118,000 spin off jobs that would help put Americans back to work. I have co-sponsored two bills that would remove red tape and streamline the Keystone Pipeline approval process, H.R.3 the Northern Keystone XL Route Approval Act and H.R.334 the Keystone for a Secure Tomorrow Act. When President Obama took office gas prices across the U.S. were around $1.90 a gallon, but his policies have created uncertainty for the market leading to higher energy prices, slower economic recovery, and a severe lack of employment opportunities for the average American.

Recently, President Obama has decided to extend a series of executive orders to increase the cost of producing domestic energy since his legislative agenda has failed to gain support from elected officials in Washington. This top down approach will increase the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) authority to regulate carbon emissions from new and existing coal burning power plants. Public utilities across the U.S. have made significant efforts over the past 10 years to diversify their portfolios and have upgraded systems to decrease emissions and implemented new technologies as they have become available. However, this administration does not understand or does not care about the impacts that these rules will have on ordinary Americans. Such drastic changes will put billion investments at risk of closing down and increase the cost of electricity that will unduly burden the middle and lower class citizens across the U.S. Instead of working with Congress and the power generation industry, this administration is pushing a “Washington knows best” policy that could have detrimental effects on average Americans.

IMMIGRATION
A compassionate solution for the illegal immigrant population living and working in the United States can be accomplished without resorting to amnesty. I cannot support a policy which rewards the criminal behavior of violating America’s immigration laws. Current illegal immigrants should not receive all the rights and privileges they would have been eligible for had they come legally. They should not be eligible for citizenship. To pardon lawbreakers and reward them with the objective of their offence is inappropriate and will accelerate the flow of illegal immigrants.

The opportunity to work in the United States is a valuable one, and those who break our laws should not have the privilege of competing in the same labor market as law-abiding citizens of our great nation. Granting amnesty to those who cross our borders and enter our nation illegally is not the answer to solving the problem of illegal immigration, especially when there are so many people around the globe who wait their turn to apply for visas and pursue legal paths to immigrate to the United States. The following actions represent some of the steps I have taken since assuming office to address illegal immigration:

Border Protection: I have co-sponsored the National Guard Border Enforcement Act. This legislation directs the Secretary of Defense to deploy at least an additional 10,000 members of the National Guard for border control activities along the U.S.-Mexico border until the Secretary of Homeland Security certifies that the federal government has achieved operational control of the border. The border must be secured, and enforcement at the border must be effective. Congress must authorize and routinely fund adequate border enforcement personnel, technology, physical infrastructure, detention facilities, and judicial and prosecutorial resources. There is a direct relationship between border security, national security, illegal immigrations, border violence, contraband smuggling, and illegal drug peddling.

Eliminating the Visa Lottery Program: I have co-sponsored the SAFE for America Act. This bill would amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to eliminate the diversity immigrant program. This would eliminate the visa lottery system, which rewards 50,000 annual green cards based on “random selection” instead of humanitarian need, family connection, or other economic or cultural value to the United States. We should give preference to those who seek to enter the U.S. for education, humanitarian, or job-specific reasons—not arbitrarily grant visas from a random pool of applicants.

Mandating E-Verify: I will fight to ensure that all employers must verify the legal immigration status of all employees. I have co-sponsored the Jobs Recovery by Ensuring a Legal American Workforce Act of 2011, which would make E-Verify, the basic pilot federal employment verification program, permanent and mandatory for all employees. E-Verify deters the employment of illegal aliens by searching employee information against government records to ensure a person’s identify. The ability of employers to rely on illegal labor must be stopped. In harsh economic times, it is important to make sure illegal aliens are not in the workforce.
HEALTHCARE

In 2012, the Supreme Court handed down its decision on the Affordable Care Act (ACA). This page can serve as a resource to keep you updated on issues related to President Obama’s Affordable Care Act.

I am disappointed with the U.S. Supreme Court’s failure to overturn President Obama’s health care law. The decision by the U.S. Supreme Court allows for the full implementation of the 2010 law, despite its flawed design and questionable constitutional basis. The law still fails to address the issue of adequate funding, and will drive up health care costs, making it harder for small businesses to hire workers. However, while the ruling is cause for dismay, supporters of the free market and individual liberty can take some comfort in the dissenting view that this law violates the U.S. Constitution. My House colleagues and I remain committed to repealing this troublesome law in its entirety. This ruling highlights the critical need for a Congress and White House committed to refocusing attention on health care legislation that provides affordability, cost transparency, choice for senior citizens, and will protect the right of citizens to keep their current insurance policies.

The fundamental flaws of the Affordable Care Act will have grave impacts on the nation for decades to come. Americans will see more than $500 billion in tax increases during a time of economic hardship. It forces Americans to buy into government-approved insurance programs, or else face an extra tax burden. The federal government should not be allowed to force its citizens to buy a private product and then strictly mandate what is in that product. Many of the tax increases will come from businesses and insurance companies themselves, with many taxes based on each company’s share of the market. At a time when Americans are struggling to find work, this law makes it even harder for small businesses to hire workers.